This image released by Fox Searchlight shows Kelly Reilly, left, and Brendan Gleeson in a scene from “Calvary.” (AP Photo/Fox Searchlight)

A new film has challenged me to try to think more deeply about the reality of evil in our world and in ourselves – about heinous crimes deserving punishment, but also the more “ordinary” forms of evil we daily experience.

And thus also to try to think about the disturbing power of goodness.

The film, titled “Calvary,” is a recent Irish import that I strongly recommend. It’s about a somewhat gruff (or direct), but very good priest in a small town on Ireland’s rugged west coast.

The film opens with a confessional threat of murder (“next Sunday”) by a man who’d been sexually abused as a child by another priest. Although sorely tempted both to defend himself and to flee, the priest spends the seven days of his “passion week” in obedience to his vocation as a pastor.

Through him, in the course of that week, we meet a good number of different villagers. Some are quite hostile to the Catholic Church, others more wary of the priest’s directness, his concern for them and insight into their deeper reality.

For all are caught in the tangled web of their passions, most by their own vices, but also by inclinations to goodness.

The contrast between this cinematic depiction of “Calvary” and Mel Gibson’s much applauded “Passion” couldn’t be greater. Despite realistic gore, Gibson’s film seems a cartoon when compared to Calvary’s deeply human realism. (Credit goes above all to writer-director John Michael McDonagh and also to Brendan Gleeson’s lead performance.)

Yet I am not here writing a film review. I’m attempting to reflect on good and evil, and on the violence which seems always to connect them. And thereby attempting another kind of reflection on capital punishment.

For the most widely remembered death penalty in human history is the execution of Jesus of Nazareth.

Christians generally have little difficulty connecting that crucifixion with sin and evil. That Jesus died “for our sins” is known from childhood and believed in at least perfunctory ways, though often enough in profound ways.

Yet what tangled webs we Christians weave. Of late, some of us have correctly learned to blame the Romans for Jesus’ execution. For long, however, we blamed “the Jews” because unfortunately some Gospel narratives did just that. Thus for centuries Jesus’ crucifixion fed Christian anti-Semitism, and led Jews to see the cross as a sign of Christian hatred.

This terrible blame game, moreover, enabled too many Christians to avoid relating that execution, that death penalty, to their own passions and vices – other than (again) by believing that Jesus’ death “bought” God’s forgiveness of these sins. But not believing (or not really believing) that our sins today, 20 centuries later, remain the cause of that execution.

Yet the film “Calvary” makes that causal connection inescapable.

For it probes, in the ordinary lives of its different characters, many forms of quite believable sin and evil, as also many hints of good and two examples of real goodness.

St. Thomas More is the kind of historical figure who captures the imagination of nearly every generation.

A scholar, lawyer, father and a Christian martyr, More is depicted in literature, theater, film, and yes, even on “The Simpsons,” as a foil of integrity for King Henry VIII, founder of the Anglican Communion.

I suspect the relationship was not as simplistic as some depictions, at least the one involving Homer Simpson and Ned Flanders, would suggest — after all, More was loyal to the leadership of King Henry VIII, and personally charitable to him even up to his death.

More’s crime was simple. When he believed his sovereign, Henry, had acted in violation of the law, and of justice, he refused to support the king. Respectfully, constructively and civilly — but also with conviction — he asked his government to act justly and follow the law. Henry instead sent him to his death.

At his execution, More notably proclaimed his willingness to serve the sovereign: “I am the king’s good servant, but God’s first.”

Where is your moral compass pointing? What are your social values? Hark will explore faith, morals, ethics and character at the intersection of religion ethics, culture, politics, media, science, education, economics and philosophy. At times this blog will alert readers to breaking news and trends. At times it will attempt to look more deeply into intriguing subjects. Hark means to listen attentively, and we will, as readers talk back to the news.